The Only Way to Make Positive Change in Your Life

In a moment, I am going to tell you one of the few universal truths I believe. It is the most powerful and useful universal truth of which I am aware because it highlights the way to personal success. But before we get to that, you should know that as a data guy, I am often the most skeptical person in the room. To give data the weight it deserves, I try to check my opinions and preferences at the door. In fact, the only quote above my desk includes the phrase, “What one likes and what one dislikes is the disease of the mind.”

It is this commitment to data (not to theory or faith) that makes me so skeptical of many so-called universal truths. Most turn out to be wildly false when tested against the data. And believing in a universal truth can be damaging, as it discourages one from embracing data that contradict it. To avoid this trap, I tell my students that if they ever encounter a statement including always, never, every, or only, it is almost certainly wrong because most truths are conditional. For example, people find a harder task more interesting only if the task provides an intrinsic reward for completion and only if they have enough time to complete the task.

Don’t get me wrong. I understand the appeal of universal truths. I like the idea of wrapping myself in their security, simplicity, and smugness as much as the next person. And I would love to find a magical chest full of universal truths buried in my backyard. Unfortunately, after 45 years of looking, I’ve only discovered a handful I believe are worth sharing.

For example: Everything breaks down over time. Everything is relative. And: Theory and preference are enemies of data.

However, the one universal truth that, to me, seems most provocative, useful, and unconditional is this: The only way to realize positive change in your life is by making choices.

That’s right. The only way that you, I, my children, President Obama, Vladimir Putin, or Justin Bieber can positively change our lives is through the choices we make.

How can this be?

The key is recognizing that we make many more choices than we realize, or that we are willing to acknowledge.

We choose to watch scary movies. We choose to befriend people with good (or bad) habits. We choose to shake our dad’s hand instead of hugging him. We choose to go to school. We choose to watch the evening news. We choose to live in the suburbs. We choose to commute a long distance. We choose to get married. We choose to have children. We choose. We choose. We choose.

Some choices we make that don’t seem like choices at all. These generally fall into two categories: habits and normative behaviors. Habits are choices that we make so regularly that over time they demand less and less executive control. As a consequence, they start to seem automatic. But they aren't. When it comes to bad habits, we may even be motivated to cede control to automaticity. That is, we may tell ourselves that the choice was made long ago and that we are now at the mercy of the automaticity that has emerged in its wake. An example: Riding the elevator instead of taking the stairs. After years of riding the elevator to his office on the third floor, a middle-aged man may find it nearly impossible to drag his body to the stairwell. His body seems to almost pull him to the elevator button instead. But the sooner the man acknowledges that he is choosing to take the elevator, the sooner he can begin looking for tricks to help him choose the stairs over the elevator—tricks like seeing if he can make it to the first, second, or third floor without breathing heavily.

Yes, we pretty much always have a choice. Even when it comes to norms that feel impenetrably strong, where no choice seems to exist, there is always a choice. You can choose to cut the brand labels off your clothing. You can choose to drop out of school and start a company. You can choose to ask a co-worker for help with something you take great pride in being good at. You can choose to tell your mother you don’t like her habits. You can choose to hug your father instead of shaking his hand. You can choose to allow someone else to feel strong in your presence.

Sartre said, “We are condemned to be free.” My take on this is that if we have free will and choice, then we must accept ownership for the choices we do or do not make. Our freedom to choose is what makes us responsible for who we are, and thus, we are condemned to be responsible for who we are.

We are condemned to choose.

If we decide not to choose, that too is a choice. If we relegate the raising of our children to the role models of the day, that is a choice as well. We cannot have free will without owning our choices. And as a person who has free will, the only way to realize positive change in your life is by making choices.

It is this power of choice—to be an agent of good and bad for ourselves—that drives me to study the choices people make and how they make them. Every couple of weeks I will post an entry here. My posts will share data from new research studies my colleagues and I have run, thoughts I have about the choices people make, and how these choices originate. I study choice because I want to help people make better choices. As a professor of marketing, I sometimes write for managers, but I also write for consumers—because consumers who understand themselves have the power to make choices that can positively influence their lives.

I'm probably going to get into trouble with someone for saying this, but I think the only solution to living with all of the expanded choices we are making at this time in history is to reduce the amount of choice situations we are exposred to. We are overwhelmed with choice. We are on overload. It leads to increased anxiety, and I think, poorer relationships. Thus, three years ago, my wife and I had the satellite disconnected on our TV. We now only use our TV for watching movies. As I've said on another site, I dropped all contact with Facebook. I don't have a smart phone. I do a lot of reading, and reflecting, and talking. But I had to drop a large part of my connection to the consumer culture.

I recently read that a Google executive stated that this year we will probably see more a pullback form technology this year as people draw closer to nature. I won't regret when that comes. Glenn

In my philosophy, choice (together with decisiion) is symptomatic of having got spiritually lost. Having strayed from your metaphorical true path, you are going the wrong way for you.

A 'true parh' is about being yourself. To always be yourself is challenging. Sometimes for whatever reason you can't be yourself but it is how long you remain in that state and how quickly you get yourself again that determines how lost you are.

We make choices in order to find ourselves and having found ourselves and become clear about who we are, we can then simply concentrate on what we know we must do in order to achieve our heaet's desire (live our dream).

Decision is about cutting in or out and choice about which way to turn. The myriad of different products and services are designed to facilitate choice and since everyone is different not all products and swrvices are going to be of interest to everyone. It all depends upon what is missing from your life that would enable you to live your dream.

The exercise of choice is reflected in the art of saying yes and no. The test of having made the right choice for you whether and how much you gain from the experience.

Yes, there is almost always a choice. But very often life offers you the choice between a kick in the groin or a punch in the face. Two different, but equally unpleasant circumstances. Are we really expected to believe that choosing unpleasant option A over unpleasant option B actually provides positive change or empowerment?

As they say: "If a jug falls on a stone the jug breaks.If a stone falls on a jug the jug breaks.Whatever happens,the jug always breaks"

I'm sorry. I was not trying to imply that choice will always lead to positive change. What I wanted people to hear was this: there is no route to positive change that I can control that does not go through choice. Put differently, choice is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for exerting positive influence over one's life.

And the sooner we recognize this, the sooner we can undertake the difficult task of identifying those choices that are most likely to create a positive change in our lives.

To add to your point, research does suggest that the beneficial effects of choosing on satisfaction are limited to choices with positive outcomes.

When one chooses between two negative events (A: kick in the groin, or B: punch in the face), choosing will make it hurt more. Specifically, if everybody knows that either A or B will happen, those who choose will be less happy with the result than those for whom it just happened out of their control.

But then, it's more fun to think about the positive choices we have in life. Isn't it? :-)

A Very interesting article. I truly do believe we are free to make choices, but we are never free from the consequences from those choices, whether they are negative or positive consequences. And sometimes they choices we make, can end up making us slaves to those consequences. If you find that you aren't happy with your life right now, you can start to make choices to change it. But just remember, the choices you made that has you unhappy, didn't all happen overnight and if you start making positive choices to turn your life around, your life won't change overnight. It will be a process, but it will and can happen if you choose to make those positive choices.

Quite simply there are you are quite correct many things we can choose but many we cannot . No one chooses to be struck by serious life limiting illness and no- one chooses to be abused . If you disagree you have probably never experienced either .

The best way, in my opinion, to view the concept of choice is to weigh its effects. I had a conversation with a friend about a year ago that really opened up my perspective. I was seeking advice about a big decision to move locations and change jobs. I kept asking if the decision is "good" or "bad." My friend replied that she doesn't see any decision as good or bad, but rather she considers what the effects of the decisions are, and often times effects are somewhere in the middle of good and bad. So, now instead of categorizing decisions, choices, big or small, I try to keep in mind the effects and I try not to pre-judge each in such stark black/white categories.

We probably never get to actually make a free choice. Isn't Psychology the very science dealing with the determinism underlying our apparent choice-making? The elevator vs. stairs example is illustrative: that choice depends on the balance of comfort vs. health awareness, but those are both pre-existent and either one or the other, together with incidental factors (some woman with great legs going for the stairs? Boring colleague going for the elevator?) will always decide the actual "choice".

As others have mentioned, you do make the assumption that you have have free will. something that a quite sizable number of physicists, neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists would say is jumping well beyond the data. A bit esoteric, sure, but if you're making a point of cleaning your throat and saying that you assume very few things beyond the data, this would be one of the biggies to note, especially given your topic. I personally find it a handy provisional assumption to make, as most of us do. But as you point out, it is good to be aware of what you're assuming.

NB: The majority of philosophers, by a slim margin, would grant you a limited version of free will called compatibilist free will, but then philosophers often aren't quite as careful about being data driven than the other fields I mentioned. It's worth checking out that term though as it is pertinent for all the areas of study mentioned and many more beside. Plus you sound like a guy who's interested in the nature of how things work

With that niggling little point aside, nice post. : ) Lots of us will 'choose' to make some changes based on it.

"If it's going to break anyways, better not choose."- adding further to this concept:

Choosing not to make a choice ("nonchoosers") between negative outcomes is also a choice, however it appears that nonchoosing negative outcomes results in more happiness. This is fine & good until nonchoosers ride the slippery slope to victimhood, where, in order to be a victim, one must have ended up with a negative outcome due to choices or actions made by others, not oneself. By nature, those being blamed for the nonchooser's victimhood are choosers- individuals who made an active choice between possible outcomes, maybe even choosing between negative outcomes. Therefore proactive individuals are at risk of being blamed for inevitable negative outcomes when they may simply have been "choosing between the lesser of evils". Furthermore, I suspect (no research to cite to support/deny this hypothesis) that since nonchoosers can blame a chooser for the negative, albeit inevitable, outcome, this may negate or even reverse any incremental increase in happiness they may have otherwise had experienced by nonchoosing without blaming. So now the proactive individuals are blamed for not only the negative outcome, but also the unhappiness of the nonchoosers.

Multiply this by an entire society, and the proactive choosers- risk takers, people of action, those attempting to make positive changes- become blamed, or worse yet, punished, for their efforts. "No good deed goes unpunished." In my opinion, a society that rewards nonchooser victims & punishes proactive choosers is a society destined to fail. Passivity (or its outcome) doesn't have to trump action (or its outcome), but rather has to trump the perceived liability of taking action (the liability is much worse than the actual difference in potential outcomes due to the victimhood mentality) to effectively discourage proactive choosers.

I think our society, particularly the western part of this world, never embraced the importance of learning inner life skills. Living in such a way as to what everyone else expects of you, other than obeying society's laws, causes terrible and unnecessary struggle and pain. I am recommending "Easy Life Skills You Never Learned In School" as an easy and fun guide with step by step techniques that have helped members in our own family. The website is www.optimindshaping.com where you can read more about this, or the book is also available as a paperback or download.

great one..
“What one likes and what one dislikes is the disease of the mind.” inspirational quote...
we have to make a positive change by reading successful people's life journey i.e too inspirational.http://www.thequotes.net/